Yes... for now!
Brace yourself...

The whole bottom leg was showing lots of bruising, turning the pretty colors of old bruises on the inner side and back, but the bruising on the outside (which went all the way down to the bottom of my foot) kept staying that dark blue of new bruise. That should have been clue # 1. Also, there was still a huge swelling where I had actually hit the step, with the little scrape on top having turned into a tadpole-shaped (sperm-shaped?) scab; if there started to be redness around it I'd put antibiotic ointment on it, and cover it. If I did that, the cover always ended up bloody, even though the scab itself wasn't bleeding. That should have been clue # 2.

So then, last weekend while at the Rally Against the Veto, I managed to fall again - onto some nice, soft, comfortable bricks - and on the exact same shin. Ouch. The swelling got even bigger, and the scab started bulging out a little. I'm OK, I go home, and I pick the teeniest tiniest bit on the tail end of the scab - and a squirt of dark blood comes out. I go to the bathroom to wash it off, and I guess the washcloth loosened the head end of the scab, and my leg practically EXPLODED. The whole swelling was apparently blood, under tremendous pressure. I mean, there were gobbets of black, goopy, dark bloody gobs all over the mirror, the far wall of the bathroom, the far end of the shower... it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen or experienced. The swelling vanished and I was left, after standing with my leg over the toilet while it lavaed out (making those horrible horror move squelching noises), looked like it was vomiting black goopy things - some of them came half-way out and if I helped, it would come out in blobbly chains of tissue and clot and wowie gross stuff. It was FASCINATING.

Anyway, I was left with no swelling, no scab, but a hole the diameter of my thumb that went through my skin all the way into the insides of my leg. And since the swelling had lifted the skin layer away from the rest of my insides, I could SEE for absolutely inches into my leg in all kinds of interesting directions... you could see the severed ends of things that looked like muscle, and things that looked like the big vein I probably busted in the original fall... it was wild.

So, back to the doctor, who says there is no way to repair something like that - I get to keep it covered with antibiotics and wrapped under pressure, and I'm taking oral antibiotics too, and I change the dressing thrice daily and with the pressure, now, the hole just goes through to the underlying tissue but there is no more great internal cavity (I could have put my whole hand into it if I could have gotten through the hole). And the bruising on the outside of my leg and foot is finally turning colors so I think there is no new bleeding going on.

And I'm probably going to miss float trip this year, since the chances are basically zero that the hole will have filled itself in by then, and I can't take showers (and trying to take a bath with one leg out of the tub is really hard on my back!)... we go down the New River every memorial day... rats!

But wowee. Really wowee. Thanks for letting me spew the info here too!